Why are Show HN texts so long?

Question

Context: I've been really wanting to show something I&rsquo;ve been working on the past few weeks. But I&rsquo;ve always felt a bit intimated by the amount of backstory, context, side notes that seems to come with each Show HN thread. Like, a 5+ long-ish-paragraph wall of text.It is often dense, rich, so I&rsquo;m not criticising, but sometimes really feels like a lot to digest, at least for me.Do you really always read all the text before you click on the link?

pvg · Accepted Answer

You must have had a strange run of Show HN's. Most have very short descriptions or no descriptions at all, you can check that by clicking around https://news.ycombinator.com/show

ano-ther · Answer

I normally go by the title, but a little (and brief) explanation is nice. Not longer than what you wrote above.
- a short summary of what this is (am I interested?)
- intended use case / users (is it for me?)
- unfinished work (where to not complain?)
- a question (where can I help?)

Why are Show HN texts so long?

You must have had a strange run of Show HN's. Most have very short descriptions or no descriptions at all, you can check that by clicking around https://news.ycombinator.com/show

I normally go by the title, but a little (and brief) explanation is nice. Not longer than what you wrote above.- a short summary of what this is (am I interested?)- intended use case / users (is it for me?)- unfinished work (where to not complain?)- a question (where can I help?)

I normally go by the title, but a little (and brief) explanation is nice. Not longer than what you wrote above.
- a short summary of what this is (am I interested?)
- intended use case / users (is it for me?)
- unfinished work (where to not complain?)
- a question (where can I help?)